Bundling machines



Oct. 7, 1969 M. NGMM ETAL 3,470,813

BUNDLING MACHINES Filed Nov. 28, 1966 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 I INVENTORS Mikkl lV'mm By Sven r4- Bihlmar mar I II. I 1 I Oct. 7, 1969 M. NOMM ETAL3,470,813

BUNDLING mcanms Filed Nov. 28, 1966 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 Fig.3.

Oct. 7, 1969 M. NbMM ETAL 3,470,813

BUNDLING MACHINES Filed NOV. 28. 19 v 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 Fig. 4.

1 1 F|g.5b

15 INVENTORS Mikkel Nomm 'SYQh A Bahlmark United States Patent Int. C1.3651:: 13/00, 57/10 US. Cl. 100-4 3 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE Amachine for bundling of wire and bar materials, including two curvedportions which surround the material to be bundled and define a curvedwire guide path. The bundling wire is fed over a driven feed wheel whichhas a peripheral groove having a width smaller than the wire diameter,and a press roller is spring biased against the periphery of the feedwheel. A twisting head is positioned along the wire guide path at thepoint where the binding wire crosses itself and has two parallel wiregrooves which are tangential to the wire guide path and having also sidegrooves. The binding wire is fed over the feed wheel, and along the wireguide path including two curved portions, finally abutting against amember which causes the wire to be raised form the wire feed means. Asensing device is responsive to such raising and controls the operationof the wire feed means. The abutting means includes a plunger whichmakes a stroke to force the free end of the wire into a respective oneof the side grooves, and the wire is then cut off by a cutting means.

The present invention relates to improvements in bundling machines andmore particularly to a bundling machine for bundling of wire and barmaterials such as reinforcement bars or coiled metal wires by bindingwith threads or wires such as iron wires, said machine comprising a wirefeeding mechanism for feeding binding wire from a supply and a wireguide path adapted to be put around a material bundle to be bound andconsisting of two arcuate portions pivotable to and from each other, anda twisting head coplanar with said wire guide path and disposed radiallybeyond said path.

For binding works various binding or bundling machines are known, mostof them operating with bands, preferably steel bands, which are wrappedand tied around the material. Similar machines operating with threads orwires have not found the same use, particularly due to the much lowertensile strength of the wires and the difficulties in getting aneffective tying of the wire ends after tightening around the bundle.

In some applications, however, it is particularly advantageous to use amachine operating with wires, primarily because of the fact that wirematerial is cheap and economical to use and also preferable for otherreasons, An example thereof is the steel works where since long time thereinforcement bars fed onto the cooling bed after manufacture arebundled manually in suitable mans loads of about bars by means of ironwires tied in three or four places along the length of the bars. In itsturn the bundles are then bundled together about ten thereof into abigger load suitable for power handling such as by fork-lift trucks.

Another example is the bundling of wire coil rings such as rolled wiresin wire rolling mills. In this case the binding has met additionalobstacles in the difficulties of getting access to the ring bundle by asuitable mechanical device and therefore the binding still is mademanually in some cases.

It is obvious that such cumbersome and operator-requiring bundling worksas the above-mentioned constitute severe obstacles to an increase of theproduction. In the case of the reinforcement bars the production speedhas already been raised so far that the bars still are inconvenientlyhot when reaching the bundling station. This hotness also puts somerequirements as to the binding material and makes the inexpensive andunimproved black iron wire particularly suitable to use, and this typeof wire is easily obtainable in the steel works, too.

Therefore, the main object of the present invention is to provide abundling machine for operation with wire binding materials, said machineoperating reliably and providing by twisting a rigid tying of such awire around a bundle to be bound.

Another object of the invention is to provide a bundling machine whichis capable of putting a binding wire around a bundle of bars or the likewhile these still are hot.

A further object of the invention is to provide a bundling machine whichis compact and relatively inexpensive to manufacture and therefore issuited for use in all places where a mechanical bundling is to besubstituted for manual bundling as mentioned above.

Still an object of the invention is to provide a machine whichautomatically and for each individual operation senses the requiredbinding wire length and thus is Very economical as to the consuming ofwire.

A machine according to the invention is substantially distinguished inthat said twisting head has two parallel wire grooves, in the startingposition of said head being located on each side of said thread guidepath plane and closely adjacent same, and in that said wire feedingmechanism comprises a driven wire feed wheel and a sensing deviceco-operating therewith for sensing the raising of the wire curved aroundthe periphery of said wire feed wheel after the wire has become fedthrough one of the wire groovers of said twisting head, around the wireguide path, through the other wire groove of the twisting head andbrought to a stop against a stop member, said sensing device beingadapted to provide for a stopping of the wire feed, a locking of thefree end of the wire by a locking means disposed outside of saidtwisting head and a momentary reverse feeding of the wire for withdrawalof the same out of said wire guide path and tightening thereof aroundthe material bundle, cutting means co-operating with said twisting headfor shearing of the tightened wire at the beginning of the finaltwisting of the ends of the sheared thread portion.

The invention is further described below with reference to theaccompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 shows an elevated view partly in section of a preferredembodiment of the inventive bundling machine particularly adapted forbundling of reinforcement bars and provided with a wire feeding andsensing mechanism;

FIG. 2 is a front view partly in section and FIG. 3 is a rear viewpartly in section of said machine;

FIG. 4 is a longitudinal section through the twisting device;

FIG. 5 is an end view of the twisting head of said twisting device; and

FIGS. 51: and 5b are further end views of said head illustrating theposition of the wire during different phases of the twisting operation.

Referring to the drawings, the machine according to the inventioncomprises in principle a wire feed mechanism 1 for feeding bindingthread or wire from a supply (not illustrated), a wire guide path 3which consists of two arcuate portions 3a and 312, respectively, andwhich can be swung to and from each other so as to allow the insertionof a bundle into said path, and a twisting device 4 mounted on a base 6which contains various elements for the operation of the machine such aselectric and hydraulic motors, electric control means and circuits, etc.

Between the wire feed mechanism 1 and the twisting device 4 there isprovided a wire guide 41. In this embodiment only the upper guide pathportion 3a is pivotable at 43a and extends over a large portion of theperiphery of a bundle to be bound. The lower guide path portion 3b isstationary. It is to be noted, however, that if suitable for theintended use of the machine said guide path portions can be inverted sothat that upper is the stationary one and the lower the movable one. Inthe wire guide path it is provided an internal wire grove 44, and thepivotal movement of the portion 3a is suitably effected by a pressurecylinder device 62.

The twisting device, as shown in FIG. 4 comprises a twisting head 51consisting of a rotatable cylindrical body in the free end of whichfacing the wire guide path 3 is formed a pair of wire grooves 52, 53.This end of the twisting head 51 is disposed at a point on or adjacentthe continuation of the closed substantially particular wire path formedby the path portions 3a and 3b. The two wire grooves 52, 53 which aredisposed on each side of a vertical diametrical plane through thecylindrical twisting head 51, extend substantially tangential from saidcircular path. Said diametrical plane then coincides with the plane ofthe circular path in the starting position of the head before thetwisting, and the axis of the cylindrical body is directed towards thecentre of the path.

The twisting head 51 is driven through a claw coupling 54 by a fiy-wheel55, in its turn being driven by e.g. a hydraulic motor 56 through asuitable coupling 57. In the twisting device there is also incorporateda pressure device disposed on one side of the twisting head andconsisting of a cylinder 58 with a piston or plunger 59 which is adaptedto bend and clamp the forward end of the binding wire portion fed, as isfurther described below. At the opposite side of the twisting head 51there is mounted a cutting member 60, against which the wire 15 is cutor sheared after tightening around the bundle.

It is advantageous that the shaft of the twisting head 51 is formed withan eccentric peripheral groove 91 in which slides the point of aspring-biased plunger 92. At the turning of said twisting head saidplunger thus will be moved in and out relatively to the centre axis ofthe shaft. The plunger 92 is adapted in its outermost position to act ona limit switch 93 giving an impulse to an electrical counter (notillustrated) which stops the rotation of the twisting head. Whenreturning the twisting head this is rotated in opposite direction untilthe abutment formed in the groove 91 by the eccentric form of saidgroove stops the angular movement by engaging the plunger 92. Thehydraulic pressure is thereby increased which acts on a pressure switchadapted to set to zero the hydraulic valve of the twisting device.

As shown particularly in FIG. 1 of the drawings, the wire feedingmechanism 1 comprises a relatively great thread feed wheel 71 along theperiphery of which there extends at least one wire conducting groove 72.Preferably the wire feed wheel 71 is driven by a hydraulic motor 73 andadapted to feed the metal wire 15 through the wire guide 41 and one ofthe wire grooves in the twisting head 51, along the wire guide path 3and back through the other wire groove of the twisting head 51 and to astop against the plunger 59 which thus also serves as a stop means. Thewire is pressed down into the wire conducting groove 72 in the wheel 71by one or more spring-biased press rolls 79.

A particular feature of this wire feed mechanism, however, is the uniquecharacter of sensing automatically and individually the required bindingwire length for each binding operation instead of working with measuredpredetermined lengths of binding wire. This character is achieved inthat it is utilized the tendency of the wire to expand or deflect incontinued feeding after the stopping against said stop member 59. Sincethe first and only place after the feed wheel 71 where the wire is notpositively guided in all directions but can deflect, is directly infront of the wire guide 41 where the wire can deflect freely radially orraise from the feed wheel 71. For this reason there is disposed at thisplace a sensing device 74 which acts on a micro-switch 8D or the like,as soon as the free end of the wire 15 has come to engagement againstsaid plunger 59 and the wire thus gets a tendency of deflectingoutwardly at a place immediately in front of said wire guide '41 by theinfluence of the wire feed wheel 71.

For instance, said sensing device 74 may consist of a pivotable arm inthe free end of which is arranged a follower roll 76 engaging the wire15 under spring pressure. A cam 77 or the like may be formed on the armfor acting on theactuating arm of the micro-switch 80.

In a suitable way this switch is connected with electromagnetic valvesfor the preferably hydraulic drive motor for the wire feed wheel 71 andadapted to provide a short-time reversal of the rotation of said feedwheel for tightening of the wire 15 around the bundle before twistingwhile the foremost end of the wire is clamped to the twisting head 51 bythe plunger 59.

The machine described above operates in the following way. After theinsertion of a bundle of material to be bound which bundle perhaps doesnot fill completely the free section of the closed wire guide path 3,while the guide path portion 3a is swung open, the machine is startedand the path 3 is closed around said bundle. The wire feeding mechanism1 then feeds the free end of the wire 15 from a suitable supply (notillustrated) by the feed wheel 71 and through the guide 41, the twistinghead groove 52, the wire path 3 and back through the twisting headgroove 53 till abutment against the retracted plunger 59. After this andin continued feeding of the wire, the wire gets a tendency to deflect orraise radially from the wire feed wheel 71. This deflection, however,immediately causes an action on the sensing device 74 which actuates themicro-switch 80, in its turn causing a stopping of the feeding and amomentary reversal of the feed for drawing the wire 15 out of said wireguide path groove 44 and tighten same around the bundle.

It has turned out that this control mechanism with sensing device isvery sensitive and quick in its reactions. The sensitivity also allowsthe provision of another cam 82 on the arm 74, if desired, for acting onanother microswitch 84 to indicate if the wire when reversing therotation of the feed wheel 71 happens to slide out of the twisting headin spite of the clamping action by the plunger 59, and in such caseimmediately stop the reversed movement before the wire 15 manages to befed back beyond the press rolls 79 and out of said feed mechanism. Thewire conducting groove 72 of said wheel, namely, is made much narrowerthan the diameter of the wire so that the wire will ride at the top ofthe groove and thus project with about half its diameter beyond theperiphery of the wheel 71. If the wire is no longer present on theperiphery of the wheel 71, the follower roll 76 will thus fall downdirectly onto the wheel which is a small movement but still sufficientfor allowing an actuation of the micro-switch 84 causing a stopping ofthe reverse feed.

In the next step the twisting device 4 is started by the hydraulic motor56, the fly-wheel 55 first rotating alone and near the end of its firstturn coming into engagement with the twisting head 51 through the clawcoupling 54. Thereby the head 51 is subjected to an impact-likerotational movement so as to first bend also the portion of the wire 15closest to the feeding mechanism 1 into a notch 52a in the groove 52, asis illustrated in FIG. 5b, and then to be capable to shear off this wireportion against a stationary cutting member 60 before the twisting head51 starts the twisting of the ends of the wire portion thus obtained.The plunger 59 then is pressed back automatically a required distance bythe rear wall of then otch 53a of the groove 53, against which wall theforemost wire end has been kept clamped by this plunger, as seen in FIG.5b.

The rotation of the twisting head 51 then is continued a required orpredetermined number of revolutions, e.g. three or four, or as many asthe wire is so tightened around the bundle that the wire endsautomatically slide out of the twisting head 51. At the same time thewire guide path portion 3a is swung open for removal of the finishedbundle; the machine then is ready for a subsequent similar operation.

The above-stated embodiment has been described only as a non-limitingexample of the invention; it is obvious to those skilled in the art thatmany modifications and variations of this embodiment can be made withinthe scope of invention as defined in the accompanying claims.

We claim:

1. A machine for 'bundling of wire and bar materials such asreinforcement bars or coiled metal wires by binding with threads orwires and comprising in combination:

wire guide path means comprising two curved portions and means foropening and closing said curved portions, said two curved portions whenclosed substantially surrounding the materials to be bundled,

a twisting head positioned at a point along the guide path defined bysaid guide path means at the point where the binding wire crossesitself, said twisting head having two aparallel wire grooves which aretangential to the wire guide path for twisting of a portion of wirearound the material to be bundled.

wire feed means for feeding wire from a supply through one of saidparallel grooves and along the entire wire guide path and back throughthe other parallel groove of said twisting head, abutment meanspositioned to be abutted by said wire portion which emerges from saidother parallel groove externally of said twisting head,

wire sensing means responsive to a raising of said wire from said wirefeed means occurring when the free end of the wire abuts against saidabutment means for controlling operation of said wire feed means,

each said wire groove being formed with a side groove disposed at theperiphery of said twisting head and extending in a direction opposite tothe direction of rotation,

said abutment means in its starting position being located with itsabutting face directly externally of said twisting head and formed as aplunger, said plunger upon making a stroke bending the free end of saidwire portion into the side groove of the associated parallel groove toproivde a clamping of said wire portion, means responsive to completionof feeding of the binding wire for controlling said plunger to make astroke, and means for cutting said wire.

2. A machine according to claim 1, characterized in that the wire feedmeans comprises a driven feed wheel which is relatively large and havinga peripheral wire guide groove having a width which is smaller than thewire diameter, and at least one press roller spring-biased against theperiphery of the feed wheel, said wire sensing device comprising afollower supported by a pivotally journalled lever and beingspring-biased against the wire in the peripheral groove of the feedwheel at a point lying after the press roller in the direction of feed.

3. A machine according to claim 1 which further includes a fly-wheelcoupled to said twisting head and means for rotating said fly-wheel,said fly-wheel being operatively coupled to said twisting head through aclaw coupling, said claw coupling permitting said fly-wheel toaccelerate a substantial portion of one revolution at the beginning of acutting operation before said claw coupling comes into action andshock-like entrains the twisting head for cutting off the portion ofwire bound around the bundle from the rest of the Wire of the supply.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,742,851 4/1956 Fryer -26 X3,137,426 6/ 1964 Brenneisen. 3,179,037 4/ 1965 Cranston et a1. 100-26 X3,269,300 8/1966 Billett et a1 10026 X 3,279,355 10/1966 Missioux 100-26FOREIGN PATENTS 112,015 9/1964 Czechoslovakia. 470,138 1/ 1929 Germany.

BILLY J. WILHITE, Primary Examiner U.S. Cl. X.R.

